THAT IS GOOD

Nagasaki Prefecture “Hammerhead – Switch Light”

Legal amount : height × width × Length = 160×500×240 (mm)
Materials: styrofoam, epoxy putty, sculpey, doll eyes

　In the spring of 2020, when the state of emergency had just been declared, my family got hooked on “Animal Crossing”(TV game), and when I wanted to buy a Nintendo Switch Light, which I was the only one who didn’t have, all the stores were sold out. I had no choice but to buy it online at a premium. “But since I’m going to be putting clay on it, I guess I can’t blame myself for paying a little more! But it’s been a year and a half since I bought it, and I haven’t tried to heap clay on it.
I thought it was about time, so I used my summer vacation to make this work. I had an idea of what I wanted to do. The head of the hammerhead shark I saw at the aquarium was so square that I thought it would be fun to make a hammerhead shark with a Nintendo Switch Light head!
　However, since the pattern was decided from the shape, the naming was difficult. Not “Nintendo”, but “Hammerhead – Switch Light”…. What do you think?

Looking back, it all started with ” Cra-Boy “, a crab-shaped Game Boy.
The Nintendo DS ” God of Dodeska-Sodeska “, a face made by combining parts from various plastic models of the human body.
The Nintendo DSiLL in the shape of a turtle, “DS Turtle LL (Live Long)”.
“ Girijin Ogre”, a PSP in the shape of “Jin-Oga (Zinogre in English)” (a popular monster from CAPCOM’s game “Monster Hunter”).
The ” 3D Zebra (because the initials of the zebra are S),” a Nintendo 3DS in the shape of a zebra….
To put it bluntly, I’ve never been able to come up with a good naming scheme for a handheld game console made out of clay!　Because I decided on the shape!
　Moreover, hammerhead sharks are caught all over the country, from Hokkaido to Okinawa!　In Nagasaki Prefecture, they are called “Akakase,” so I’ve decided to call this “Nagasaki’s local work” based on that one piece of information.

Cra-Boy

God of Dodeska-Sodeska

DS亀LL(Live Long)

Girijin Ogre

3DS　Zebra

Photo Provided by Naoto Otsubo/Kodansha Ltd.

　It is true that the Nintendo Switch Light has the largest screen of any portable game console to date. Since I wanted to make a hammerhead shark with that as its face, it would have to be a certain size. So I thought, “Let’s make a Switch Light that can be played with its tail between my legs! But here’s another problem: the bottom part of the Switch has various parts for inserting and removing software, microSD, etc., and it would be inconvenient to block it with clay!　So I changed the way I hold the Switch, so that the head is down and the tail is up. Now you can play the game while developing a sense of balance! Along with this, I drilled a hole in the back of the head for the speaker, and connected it to the mouth on the back of the head to improve the sound quality ( from my opinion)!　In addition, the clay on the back side is indented in the shape of a finger to make it easier to hold!　　
When I made that part, my second son asked, “Aren’t you going to make a face on the back? Just like the Crab Boy”. Certainly, the design of Crab Boy has a face on the shell. Exactly! I remembered that 17 years ago, when I made it, I used to put a face on it whenever I could find a place, even though I wasn’t asked to do so. So I made a face for it.

　The image is mimicry. It looks like a small face, but it’s actually the underside of a hammerhead shark’s big face! That’s how it’s set up. Well, the mouth is actually the mouth of a hammerhead shark!　The eyes are to the left, and the teeth are human teeth, inspired by the jacket of King Crimson’s “In The Court Of The Crimson King”. On the sides, I used doll eyes for the first time in a long time as the eyes of a real hammerhead shark.

　I used cream as the base color for the whitish parts of the underside, and painted the face with lighter red and blue like a watercolor. I was happy with the way it made the shark skin stand out. I first tried painting the darker colors on the surface with a dark blue like navy blue, but it didn’t have as much impact as the back. After some trial and error, I tried to paint the pattern of the water surface with a brush and then added the shadows with black. I hope you get the idea. It was difficult to randomly change the size of the frame.

　So it was announced that the “JIN KATAGIRI SOSAKU DAI-HYAKKA” will also be held!
This will be my first solo exhibition in Tokyo in eight years, and I’ll be showing illustrations and many of my past creations! Please come and see the real thing!

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About Nagasaki Prefecture

It is the prefecture with the largest number of islands in Japan, with a surprisingly large number of over 900 islands, including the Goto Islands, Iki, and Tsushima. During the Edo period (1603-1868), Dejima in Nagasaki was the only point of contact for Europe. It is a prefecture with close ties to Christianity, as the missionary Francis Xavier proselytized in the area. The Oura Church (Basilica) built at the end of the Edo period (1603-1868), was registered as a World Heritage Site in 2018. In addition, Nagasaki City, which was attacked by an atomic bomb on August 9, 1945, has a “Peace Park” to reflect on the war and pray for world peace.

Photo provided by Nagasaki Tourism Federation
Permission was obtained from the Archdiocese of Nagasaki.

About “JIN KATAGIRI SOSAKU DAI-HYAKKA”

The new exhibition period of the “JIN KATAGIRI SOSAKU DAI-HYAKKA” which had been canceled in the spring of 2020, has been set for November 20 (Sat) to December 19 (Sun), 2021!

The exhibition will cover all of Katagiri’s creative activities over the past 20 years, including the clay works he has published as Nendo-michi, paintings from his student days that will be shown for the first time, illustrations he has drawn for the serialization of “TV Bros,” and works he has created for interviews.
In addition, new clay works created for the web media “THAT IS GOOD” after the previous exhibition was canceled, works created for Jin Katagiri’s YouTube channel “Giri Channel,” and a re-creation of the Katagiri family’s living room, which often appears in the videos, will be newly added to the exhibition. Also, “Jin Katagiri’s Park (tentative)” will be created as a landmark of this exhibition by crowdfunding.

There’s a crowdfunding effort underway to produce this!
The period ends at 23:59 on October 17 (Sun). Please support us!!

Afterword

I was going to take a picture of Hammerhead Switch Light with the hammerhead shark at the Tokyo Sea Life Park, but I couldn’t because they were declaring a state of emergency. So, I let it swim in the city. I can’t get enough of that expression floating in the sky. This “Hammerhead – Switch Light” will be exhibited at “WAVE TOKYO 2021” held at 3331 Arts Chiyoda from October 9 (Sat) to 17 (Sun). You will be able to see it up close!

WAVE TOKYO 2021

Location: 6-11-14, Sotokanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
Date: 2021.10.9 (Sat) – 17 (Sun)
Time: 11:00 – 19:00
Fee: 1,000 yen / Free for over 65 years old and high school students and younger
Free for those with disability certificate and one accompanying person.

TEXT : THAT IS GOOD editorial department, Fujita

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